Beit

JERUSALEM - Israeli forces pulled out of the Palestinian town of Beit Jala before daybreak, witnesses said, hours after the Jewish state agreed to end its occupation if calm was restored. The withdrawal, arranged with U.S. and European help, began two days after Israeli tanks and troops occupied the village following heavy exchanges of fire between Palestinian gunmen in the town and the nearby Jewish neighborhood of Gilo, a Jerusalem suburb. Witnesses said Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers headed out of Beit Jala, after gunfire stopped around midnight, five hours before the withdrawal began.

As Beit Tikvah Congregation's new rabbi, Larry Pinsker settled into his new office, a visitor couldn't help noticing stuffed animals and action figures on a bookshelf, including ones of Moses, Sigmund Freud and Plastic Man, a 1950s precursor of Elastic Man. The longtime rabbi, a comic book aficionado and collector of superhero figurines, has left his former post as associate rabbi of Shaarey Zedek in Winnipeg, Canada, largest conservative Jewish...

BEIT JALA, West Bank - Israeli soldiers were advancing toward the village square, overlooked by stone buildings with every window closed. Palestinian gunmen darted between the buildings, spraying bullets at a tank parked between a mosque and a church. Crouched behind sandbags on rooftops and street corners, the Israeli soldiers returned fire. Finally, a Palestinian commander shouted into his radio, "Withdraw! Withdraw!" Then, for just a few moments yesterday, Beit Jala was silent. The West Bank town of 6,500 people, built on a steep hill between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, has become an urban battlefield.

By Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi abu Alouf and Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi abu Alouf,Los Angeles Times | November 5, 2006

GAZA CITY, West Bank -- Israeli forces widened their four-day-old offensive in the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing five Palestinian fighters and three civilians, including a 13-year-old girl hit by a sniper bullet fired into her home. Moving five miles south of their initial targets in the town of Beit Hanoun, Israeli troops and tanks fought for four hours against gunmen near Jabalya. Four men from the armed wing of Hamas, the Islamic movement that governs the Palestinian territories, were killed in the battle, Palestinian officials said.

BEIT JALA, West Bank - For two nights, there has been quiet. The Palestinian gunmen hiding in centuries-old olive groves have disappeared. Israeli tanks have shut off their engines. So the dueling towns of Beit Jala and Gilo - one Palestinian, the other a Jewish suburb of Jerusalem built in the West Bank - are enjoying at least a temporary peace. Beit Jala and Gilo are no longer firing at each other. "If the Israelis really want to come into Beit Jala, they will do it whether there is shooting or no shooting," said George Ka'aber, 64, who runs a grilled chicken shack in Beit Jala, a traditionally Christian community that adjoins Bethlehem and climbs a steep hill.

By Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi abu Alouf and Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi abu Alouf,Los Angeles Times | November 4, 2006

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Dozens of Palestinian gunmen holed up in a mosque ringed by Israeli troops and tanks escaped yesterday after the Israelis opened fire on a group of women who rushed toward the shrine to serve as human shields. Two of the women were killed on the third day of fighting in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun; 17 others were listed as wounded. The end to the 15-hour standoff was a setback for Israeli forces that had stormed the town Wednesday to find stockpiles of Kassam rockets and the militants who launch them into Israel.

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops shot to death two Palestinians, including a mother of eight, during a clash yesterday in a West Bank village, Palestinians said. The army also rolled back into a Palestinian town in the Gaza Strip a day after pulling out. With Israel still recovering from five suicide bombings in recent days, the military said it had uncovered a major bomb-making operation in the West Bank city of Nablus and two large roadside bombs in Gaza that were intended to destroy armored vehicles.

By Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi abu Alouf and Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi abu Alouf,Los Angeles Times | November 5, 2006

GAZA CITY, West Bank -- Israeli forces widened their four-day-old offensive in the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing five Palestinian fighters and three civilians, including a 13-year-old girl hit by a sniper bullet fired into her home. Moving five miles south of their initial targets in the town of Beit Hanoun, Israeli troops and tanks fought for four hours against gunmen near Jabalya. Four men from the armed wing of Hamas, the Islamic movement that governs the Palestinian territories, were killed in the battle, Palestinian officials said.

JERUSALEM - Kamees al Salyma and his neighbors in the north Jerusalem enclave of Beit Hanina, with their Palestinian roots but also strong ties to Israel, ought to be prime beneficiaries of a future peace. Instead, the young man and his community are trapped between clashing visions of a final settlement and could end up as losers. Al Salyma, 21, belongs to the Palestinian generation that took to the West Bank streets by the thousands last month, hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails, and firing live ammunition at Israeli soldiers.

BEIT JALA, West Bank - His hands bound behind his back and his eyes tightly blindfolded, Ahmad Ibrahim was taken Friday from his village near Bethlehem by Israeli soldiers and locked in a cell he likened to a packed chicken coop. The 23-year-old auto mechanic was released yesterday, after being held for four days with 150 others sharing a single toilet, all of them waiting to be interrogated by Israeli intelligence officers conducting a wide, seemingly indiscriminate dragnet to find wanted terrorists.

By Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi abu Alouf and Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi abu Alouf,Los Angeles Times | November 4, 2006

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Dozens of Palestinian gunmen holed up in a mosque ringed by Israeli troops and tanks escaped yesterday after the Israelis opened fire on a group of women who rushed toward the shrine to serve as human shields. Two of the women were killed on the third day of fighting in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun; 17 others were listed as wounded. The end to the 15-hour standoff was a setback for Israeli forces that had stormed the town Wednesday to find stockpiles of Kassam rockets and the militants who launch them into Israel.

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip -- Israeli attacks in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday left six Palestinians dead, including two children, and at least 10 wounded, casting doubt on the prospects of a cease-fire initiative being circulated among militant groups by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. One shell hit a parking lot here, killing three and injuring 10, authorities said. Witnesses said a second shell in another area of Beit Lahiya struck a donkey cart, killing a 60-year-old woman and her 12-year-old grandson.

OLGA ASSAF WAHBE passed away on February 25, 2006 at her home in Beit Jala in the Palestinian West Bank. Born on March 23, 1904, she died just a month short of her 102nd birthday. She dedicated her life and spent sixty years educating several generations of Palestinian girls and women, first under the British Mandate, later under the Jordanian government and finally under the Israeli occupation. She served as a teacher, administrator and advisor to government and private schools. Miss Wahbe attended the British High School in Jerusalem and continued her education in the British Girls' School where she received her Teacher's Diploma.

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops shot to death two Palestinians, including a mother of eight, during a clash yesterday in a West Bank village, Palestinians said. The army also rolled back into a Palestinian town in the Gaza Strip a day after pulling out. With Israel still recovering from five suicide bombings in recent days, the military said it had uncovered a major bomb-making operation in the West Bank city of Nablus and two large roadside bombs in Gaza that were intended to destroy armored vehicles.

JERUSALEM - Ahead of a meeting next week with President Bush, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set a hard line yesterday on retaining Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Sharon dismissed as not "on the horizon" any talk of changing Israel's settlement policy, and he dismissed suggestions that the Bush administration was pressing him to dismantle settlements. During a visit here over the weekend, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that he raised the issue of settlements with Sharon, and that Bush would pursue the matter when he sees Sharon on Tuesday.

JERUSALEM - In the Gaza Strip, Khaled al-Batsh vows that the militant group Islamic Jihad will never surrender its weapons. In the Jewish settlement of Beit El, in the West Bank, David Frankel expresses confidence that the community will never be abandoned. Their firmly held views hint at some of the obstacles facing the United States and other sponsors of the peace plan known as the "road map," and at the strong feelings that help fuel the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. As if to signal the difficulties ahead, hard-liners among the Palestinians do not just oppose giving up guns, and hard-liners among the Israelis do not just oppose freezing settlement expansion, as required by the road map. They also say the issues are so unlikely to come up that they should not be taken seriously.

JERUSALEM - Ahead of a meeting next week with President Bush, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set a hard line yesterday on retaining Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Sharon dismissed as not "on the horizon" any talk of changing Israel's settlement policy, and he dismissed suggestions that the Bush administration was pressing him to dismantle settlements. During a visit here over the weekend, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that he raised the issue of settlements with Sharon, and that Bush would pursue the matter when he sees Sharon on Tuesday.

OLGA ASSAF WAHBE passed away on February 25, 2006 at her home in Beit Jala in the Palestinian West Bank. Born on March 23, 1904, she died just a month short of her 102nd birthday. She dedicated her life and spent sixty years educating several generations of Palestinian girls and women, first under the British Mandate, later under the Jordanian government and finally under the Israeli occupation. She served as a teacher, administrator and advisor to government and private schools. Miss Wahbe attended the British High School in Jerusalem and continued her education in the British Girls' School where she received her Teacher's Diploma.

BEIT JALA, West Bank - His hands bound behind his back and his eyes tightly blindfolded, Ahmad Ibrahim was taken Friday from his village near Bethlehem by Israeli soldiers and locked in a cell he likened to a packed chicken coop. The 23-year-old auto mechanic was released yesterday, after being held for four days with 150 others sharing a single toilet, all of them waiting to be interrogated by Israeli intelligence officers conducting a wide, seemingly indiscriminate dragnet to find wanted terrorists.

BEIT JALA, West Bank - When Israeli tanks pulled out of this traditionally Christian village in October, its residents rejoiced, believing peace had returned to their hillside community. Shopkeepers patched bullet holes in doors and windows and reopened their stores. Children re-emerged from darkened homes to play on St. Nicholas and Virgin Mary streets. But the peace was quickly marred. By the time the Israelis withdrew, Muslim militants accused two young Christian women of being romantically involved with Israeli soldiers.